Summary

Administrative Information

Access

Available for reference

Provenance

The papers of Sir Isaac Isaacs received by the National Library in three
parts. The major portion was deposited by Lady Isaacs in 1950. In 1968, after
the death of Isaacs daughter Mrs Marjorie Cohen, a second group of papers
was received from her son Thomas B. Cohen. A further collection, used by Sir
Zelman Cowen for his biography Isaac Isaacs, was deposited in April
1970.

Scope and Content

The collection is small but includes family correspondence, articles and
addresses, papers concerning Jewish affairs between 1942 and 1944, notebooks
written whilst a student, script-books, newspaper cuttings, photographs, a
Government House visitors book, regalia, certificates and illuminated
addresses. The papers document Isaacs career as a State and federal
politician, judge and as Governor-General of Australia.

Xerox copies of letters written in 1903 and 1913 from Sir Edmund Barton
to Sir Samuel Griffith are included; the originals are contained in the
Griffith Papers (ML MSS 363), Mitchell Library, Sydney.

Biographical Note

Isaac Isaacs was born in Melbourne on 6 August 1855. His parents Alfred
and Rebecca Isaacs had arrived in Victoria from England the previous year.
Isaacs attended school in Yackandandah and Beechworth, where his parents lived
between 1859 and 1886. He became a pupil-teacher in Beechworth before joining
the Prothonotarys Office, Law Department, Melbourne in 1875, when he
commenced part-time study at the University of Melbourne. He graduated as a
Bachelor of Laws in 1880 and a Master of Laws in 1883. In 1882 Isaacs was
called to the Bar; he took silk in 1899 and practised until 1906.

From 1892 until 1901 he represented Bogong in the Victorian Legislative
Assembly and was Attorney-General in the Conservative Ministry of J.B.
Patterson. He was Attorney-General in the Liberal Ministries of Sir George
Turner (1894-1899, 1900-1901) and in Alexander Peacocks Government
(February-June 1901).

Isaacs was a member of the Victorian delegation at the Federal
Convention in 1897-1898, and entered the first Commonwealth Parliament as the
Member for the Victorian electorate of Indi. He was Attorney-General in the
second Deakin Ministry between July 1905 and October 1906, when he was
appointed to the High Court. In 1921 he became a Privy Councillor, and in 1924
was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. After acting as
Chief Justice of Australia during 1925 and 1927, he was appointed to the
position in 1930. The following year, on the recommendation of Prime Minister
J.H. Scullin, he was appointed the first Australian-born Governor-General.

Immediately after retirement in January 1937, the Isaacs visited Europe
before settling in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra.

In 1928 Isaacs was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael
and St George (K.C.M.G.) and in 1932 a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St
Michael and St George (G.C.MG.). In 1938 he received the Knight Grand Cross of
the Order of the Bath (G.C.B.) in the Coronation Honours List. He married
Deborah Jacobs of Melbourne in 1888 and their two daughters were Marjorie (Mrs
David Cohen) and Nancy (Mrs Sefton Cullen).

Sir Isaac Isaacs died in Melbourne on 12 February 1948. Lady Isaacs
lived in Bowral until her death in 1960.

Series Description

Series 1.FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE

The series, which is arranged chronologically, contains a small amount
of correspondence during the years from 1883 until 1913 between Isaacs and his
mother, wife and children. The bulk of the letters date from the period
1930-1947 and were written by Isaac and Deborah Isaacs to their daughter
Marjorie. They discuss family matters, events during Isaacs term as
Governor-General, their trip to Europe in 1937, world politics and Jewish
affairs.

Items 1-1110

Series 2.GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

The letters date from 1888 until 1966 and include Isaacs
correspondence with Joseph Tarrant and the legal firm Curtis and Barry
concerning a legal fee; photocopies of letters from Sir Edmund Barton to Sir
Samuel Griffith in 1903 and again in 1913 when Griffith was in England; a
letter in 1931 from the Attorney-General Frank Brennan accepting Isaacs
resignation as Chief Justice of the High Court; a letter of appreciation from
the Duke of Gloucester in 1934, after his Australian tour; letters from Lord
Wigram concerning the Isaacs trip to England in 1937; correspondence with
J.H. Scullin and Sir Kenneth Bailey in 1947 concerning his pension; and letters
from Mrs Tulla Brown (née Keating) of Canberra to Zelman Cowen in 1962
relating to his biography of Isaacs.

Items 1-138

Series 3.NOTEBOOKS

There are 17 small books containing notes on legal subjects; they were
compiled during the years 1875 to 1881, when Isaacs was a student. A large book
and two smaller ones contain notes and cuttings from his period on the Bench of
the High Court. A book listing his retainers for the years 1901 to 1906 is also
included.

Items 1-241

Series 4.JEWISH AFFAIRS

The series contains notes and an annotated typescript for Professor
Julius Stones open letter to Isaacs entitled Stand up and be
counted. This was written in 1944 on the occasion of the twenty-sixth
anniversary of the Jewish National Home. The series also includes Isaacs
booklet Palestine . political Zionism (1946); two copies, one
annotated by Stone, of a memorandum, Immigration to Australia, a
document prepared by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry for the
Australian Government; documents of the United Emergency Committee for European
Jewry on Mauritius internees in 1942; minutes taken by Isaacs at two committee
meetings in 1882 of the Melbourne Jewish Young Mens Russian Relief Fund;
and other articles by Isaacs written between 1938 and 1947.

Items 1-350

Series 5.THE AUSTRALIAN CONSITITION

Isaacs was a strong advocate of federation and a member of the Victorian
delegation at the Federal Convention of 1897-1898. He was a member of its
finance committee and drew upon his legal training to suggest many revisions of
the recommendations of the drafting committee. The papers contain Isaacs
annotated Draft of a bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia
adopted by the National Australasian Convention 1891, two annotated copies of
Draft of a bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia approved
by the Australasian Federal Convention in 1897, an article by Isaacs A
modernised constitution : a conspicuous example of its necessity, and an
annotated printed and typescript copy of Austraaslian Federal Constitution
1897, American decisions and references.

Items 1-82

Series 6.ADDRESSES AND ARTICLES

This series contains an article on the English language, dated 1877; a
typescript copy of notes used when Isaacs introduced the Usury Prevention Bill
in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1898; a typescript of his address
entitled the Monash Oration delivered in 1937 to the Victorian Jewish
Graduates and Undergraduates; The Constitutional compromise of Section 74
departed from by the 1936 judgment, an address Isaacs gave to the
International Law Society c. 1940; Hitler and civilization, an
article written during World War II; and World Peace written in
June 1947.

Items 1-207

Series 7.HONOURS, CERTIFICATES AND ILLUMINATED
ADDRESSES

The documents in this series relate to Isaacs memembership of the
Privy Council, his appointment as Chief Justice and Governor-General, and his
K.C.M.G., G.C.M.G. and G.C.B. There are also a Bible, fourteen
illuminated addresses, and a souvenir book of the 145th anniversary
of Paramatta in 1933.

Series 8.GENERAL PRESS CUTTINGS

There are two scrap-books for the period 1893-1897, two for 1900 and
many loose cuttings covering the years 1897-1963.

Series 9.GOVERNOR-GENERAL, 1931-1937

This series contains notes written by Isaacs after a discussion with
J.H. Scullin in July 1931, concerning his appointment as Governor-General; a
visitors book from Government House, Canberra 1931-1935, a typescript
article by Keith Moss of the Evening News (London) entitled His
Excellency of Canberra; a scrapbook for 1937; and a trunk containing the
uniform used by Isaacs on Vice-Regal occasions.

Items 1-11

Series 10.BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL

Included here is material deposited by Sir Zelman Cowen after the
publication of his biography Isaac Isaacs. There are notes compiled by
Cowen and a typescript article The family tree by P.A. Jacobs,
brother of Lady Isaacs.

Items 1-122

Name Index To Correspondence

All letters and memoranda in the collection have been name-indexed. The
numbers before the solidus (/) refer to the series and those following the
solidus refer to the individual items. Underlining indicates authorship and
non-underlining receipt of a letter. As most of the letters were written
to Isaacs, they have only been indexed under the name of the author.
Letters written by Isaacs have been indexed under both his name and
that of the recipient.